


Loving Her is Red

by includewomeninthesequel



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Red - Freeform, Romance, Steggy Week 2020, Tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:14:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25406740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/includewomeninthesequel/pseuds/includewomeninthesequel
Summary: It had been hard for him not to stare at her mouth before, but it would be sweet torture now that he knew what red actually looked like.What red looked like on her.
Relationships: Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Comments: 14
Kudos: 83





	Loving Her is Red

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Steggy Week 2020 Day 2: Tropes, Clichés, and Symbols.
> 
> This was based off of [this tumblr post](https://followingyourbliss.tumblr.com/post/621041862368755712/im-sure-its-been-said-before-but-do-you-ever) and then I took it and ran.

The first thing that Steve notices when he steps out of the chamber is that everything is too loud. Not only could he hear out of his previously deaf ear, but now both ears were picking things up that his good ear never could’ve before. It’s disorienting, to say the least, and it takes his head a few moments to stop spinning.

The second thing he notices, are the colours. 

Having trained himself to learn how to identify colours his whole life, Steve matches the previously identified shades of white, brown, green, and grey around him to his new reality.

Then he sees Peggy, clear as day as she stands directly in front of him.

Peggy, looking slightly out of breath for the first time since he’d met her, staring at him as though in awe.

_Peggy._

Steve loses his breath (he takes a moment to awe at the fact that he’d been breathing properly in the first place) when he sees her lips. 

_Red_ , his brain supplies.

It had been hard for him not to stare at her mouth before, but it would be sweet torture now that he knew what red actually looked like.

What red looked like on _her_.

His brain tells him that she just asked him how he was feeling, and Steve knows he needs to answer.

“Taller,” he breathes, not wanting to disclose what he’d actually been feeling just now.

He looks away at the general commotion of the room, trying to get himself together. When he turns back to look at her, he takes in the specific shade of red on her lips as she speaks and hands him a shirt. It’s a darker shade, and it suits her perfectly.

Then chaos erupts.

The explosion, the gunshot, Erskine dead. 

Steve springs into action.

Chasing after the guy, tackling Peggy out of the way of the cab, apologizing as he goes after the guy again, catching him only to have him take a cyanide pill.

Later, as Peggy is offering him words of comfort that he’s trying so desperately to believe, he looks at her.

It feels weird to look down to be able to see her face after having been the same height for the last few months. He focuses on the sincerity in her eyes.

His eyes unwittingly flick down to her lips. He’d seen rare glimpses of red while running down the city streets earlier, but nothing he’d seen could hold a candle to Peggy’s red.

Without realizing it, every time Steve sees red after that - specifically a shade he later learned was called scarlet, or Victory Red - his mind drifts to the image of Peggy’s lips, her smile.

Of Peggy in general.

* * *

Steve knows he’s a goner when she comes to the pub wearing that red dress.

In his shock, he only half remembers to call her Agent Carter because they’re in public and she deserves the same respect any man would get.

Steve’s aware of the way that Bucky keeps interjecting, but she only has eyes for him. It’s the opposite of what he’s experienced his entire life, and between the look in her eyes and the look of her in that dress, Steve knows he could live in this moment forever.

He makes sure to keep his eyes respectfully on her face while they talk. There’s a voice in his head that sounds a little too much like Bucky’s telling him that she’s wearing that dress on purpose, because she wants him to look. Like every strategy he’s seen Peggy employ, it works, because he doesn’t want to stop looking.

Steve, however, is determined to remain a gentleman.

Besides, he got a _very good_ look at the dress when she came in. It’s not an image he could forget anytime soon, even if he tried.

His photographic memory is suddenly now both a blessing and a curse.

She tells him she’s looking for the right partner. They both know what she’s doing by repeating his own words back to him.

It’s an invitation, not just to the dance that she had mentioned, but to more. Maybe even an entire life, after the war.

It’s hope.

Hope that he holds in his heart steadfastly while he watches her leave.

* * *

When she fires four ‘test shots’ into his shield, Steve sees red.

Not in the sense that he’s angry. He knows he’s fucked up and he needs to make it right - he _will_ make it right. 

Steve sees red in the sense that he can see Peggy’s power and anger and passion plain as day, and it finally clicks in his head why she wears red lipstick.

After the serum, Steve had been learning and understanding firsthand why everyone associated each colour to different emotions and feelings. He’d also been forming his own opinions on those associations based on his own experiences.

Red is bold and powerful; it can’t be hidden. Red is a warning.

Red was Peggy’s battle armour.

It suits her, in every way. It’s visible when she openly gives her opinion in the war room based on what she thinks is right, and in the way that she makes it publicly known that a woman can do the job any of these male soldiers can. 

Steve learns from Peggy that red can also be as much a silent weapon as it can be a bold one. He notices how she’ll bite her tongue, downplay her own intelligence and agree with a poor decision from a superior officer, only to go behind their back and give Steve and the Commandos a different strategy option, or go in search of answers that will give them better support. When these missions are hailed a success, they’re the only ones (aside from Phillips, most likely) who know that she’s the reason why.

From then on, Steve more consciously associates red with Peggy, adding new meanings as he gets to know her better. Red becomes the colour of power, strategy, intellect, warmth, safety, and passion. 

The colour of his right partner.

He’s not ready to admit that last one to anyone yet, except himself.

* * *

Her lips are painted their classic Victory Red when he sees her for the last time.

The adrenaline is coursing through his veins, his only thought being that he needs to stop Schmidt. 

This is the moment to turn the tide and end it all. 

Steve’s attention snaps back to Peggy when he hears her voice and suddenly all he sees are her bright eyes as her hand grips one of his uniform straps before she’s pulling him down. 

Just like that they’re kissing hurriedly, fiercely, almost exactly the way that Steve had imagined, had _wanted_ a few minutes back when she’d saved him from being burnt to a crisp. Except now they’re actually doing it and it’s better than what Steve could have imagined. 

It ends all too quickly, but Steve’s still in a daze because Peggy’s just kissed him and she’s smiling at him and her lips are somehow still impossibly red _._

He’s pretty sure that she’s telling him to _go get him_ , but he can only stare at her, and then at Phillips, dumfounded.

Phillips’ voice snaps him out of it, and Steve’s brain tells him to jump, so he does.

Steve clings to the image of Peggy dancing with him, wearing her red dress from the night in the pub in London, her red lips turned upward into a smile as he brings the plane down.

* * *

In the 21st century, Steve detaches himself from the colour red as much as possible.

It’s difficult, considering the colour of Tony’s Iron Man suit, Thor’s cape, and Natasha’s hair, but they’re all the wrong shade of red, so he deals with that easily enough. 

He can even handle it if something is the right shade of red. _Her_ shade of red. Steve can force down the memories and swallow the lump in his throat every time he sees a scarlet blouse in a department store window, or when a woman with the wrong colour hair is walking down the street wearing that particular shade somewhere in her outfit. 

The problem arises when it is the right shade of red, attached to someone who at a passing glance resembles her so closely.

No matter how much his traitorous heart screams otherwise, it’s never her.

Out of all the Avengers, Steve’s certain that Nat is the only one who sees right through him when this happens. He knows that she notices the way he almost drops his coffee when he sees the brunette outside the Starbucks who was wearing a scarlet red dress. He stops talking in the middle of his own sentence, jaw dropping slightly while his heart hammers in his chest.

But then the woman turns around, and it isn’t her.

It’s never _her_.

Steve clears his throat and continues on as though nothing had happened.

As though his heart hadn’t been torn apart _again_.

Nat doesn’t make him talk about it, which he’s grateful for.

Steve finally gathers up the courage to go see her in person, and though the pain lessens, it’s still there. He doesn’t tell her about it, because he doesn’t want her to feel guilty for a choice that he made.

She probably sees through him anyway, but allows him the dignity to battle it alone, just like he wants.

That doesn’t stop her from calling him dramatic every now and again, and for a moment it’s like he never crashed the plane.

He continuously works on associating red with other things. Blood’s the only one that seems to stick well enough. Steve sees it all the time in his line of work both on himself and others, and it gives him a flimsy excuse for why he feels slightly sick every time he sees it.

After Peggy dies, red is all he can see.

Red is now the colour of blood and pain and _not her_.

Whenever humanly possible, he avoids it all together.

He can’t escape it when he closes his eyes. It radiates from his visions of her and encompasses him in warmth while he dreams of a dance he’ll never have.

* * *

She’s wearing red when Steve comes back.

It’s the first thing he notices when she opens the door. Her lips painted in her signature Victory Red, a perfect match for her painted nails and scarlet red dress.

It’s not the same dress that she wore in the pub, but he’s just as breathless as he was that night all the same.

Steve’s only vaguely aware of the tea cup she was holding shattering on the ground. 

He is definitely aware of the way her hand instinctively reaches for her right thigh. 

Steve doesn’t know when she started wearing a thigh holster, but he does know that he needs to stop her before she makes the shot.

Peggy always makes her shot.

“It’s me,” he tells her quickly, his voice breaking slightly. “Peggy, I promise it’s me.”

Her hand freezes.

She tilts her head in disbelief, eyes boring into his. He’s uncertain if she’s searching for the truth in his eyes, or for the man she lost in the ice.

Probably both.

He starts trying to think of something he can say that would prove to her he is who he claims to be - that he’s the man she used to know. He’s more tired, more broken, but it’s still him.

He’s still hers, if she’ll have him.

Then she takes a step toward him. 

Steve’s breath hitches. 

She reaches her hand up, fingers gently tracing the lines on his forehead and around his eyes that weren’t there when he went into the ice.

He nearly crumbles under her touch. It’s feather-light, as though she’s afraid he’ll disappear. Steve doesn’t know how to tell her that it’s more likely he’ll fall apart. That the weight of having even this small moment after thinking he’d lost everything twice over was threatening to suffocate him where he stood. Overwhelmed, he closes his eyes.

“You’ve been gone longer than four years, haven’t you?”

Her voice compels him to look at her, to face her own shiny eyes. He almost wants to laugh. Of course she figured it out seconds after seeing him. Peggy’s always known him, has always been able to see every part of his heart.

Steve opens his mouth, but quickly closes it when his voice threatens to crack.

He nods instead.

“Oh my darling,” she whispers, pulling him into her embrace. 

Steve can’t keep it together any longer. He breaks down in her arms, clutching her to him like a lifeline. Peggy holds him tightly, and Steve finally feels like he’s home.

Eventually he pulls away so he can look at her. Her thumbs swipe the tears under his eyes.

Steve realizes that despite the fact that she’s crying too, she’s also smiling. A full on teeth-bearing grin. Without another word, she pulls him into the house and toward the living room. She walks backwards, still staring at him in awe, until they arrive at their destination.

He watches closely as she drops his hand and walks over to her record collection. A slow grin forms on his face upon realizing that she’s going to make sure that he keeps his promise, no matter how late he is. Steve carefully memorizes the way that the red of her nails reflect the sun as she peruses the records, the sway of her dress as it follows her body, her lips pursed in concentration.

She’s a vision, and Steve tells her as much. Peggy looks up at him, holding a record in her hands. Her eyes soften, and he takes note of the way her cheeks turn a soft pink.

“You’re a dream come true,” she whispers honestly.

He walks over and kisses her then, pouring every ounce of longing he’s felt for the last 13 years into it.

Holding her tightly in his arms, one of her hands tangled in his hair to keep him close, Steve feels the weight in his chest finally dissolve. He sees red again for everything it means to him.

Her.

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to Darcy, who really gave me a lot of support on this one (and everything I write)


End file.
